Create Simple Static Websites With Orbs

If you want to create a website with a lot of articles, there are many blogging platforms (such as Blogger and WordPress) which will help you do so. However, sometimes you may just wish to create a static web site that displays a set of information. These types of web sites can be for personal use (for example when as a “landing page” to link to all your other online content) or for commercial use (for example a basic home page for a small business).

Orbs helps you create simple web sites in just a few minutes even if you have no experience with web programming.

Initial Setup

Firstly, navigate to orbs.com and click on the “Try Demo” button to see how a static web site on Orbs looks like.

Next, sign-up for a free account. The first thing you will have to do after signing up, is creating a domain name for your static website. This domain name will have the “orbs.com” suffix.

After you have selected a domain name you can start designing your static web page.

With a free account you are able to create a total of 50 static pages (with 100 MB of storage).

Site Design

Creating your website is quite straightforward. Simply click on the part of the website that says “New Orb Click on this text to edit” and start inserting the text and content you wish to appear on your website.

Here you can change the format of the text, add quotes, numbered and bulleted lists, links, tables and images. Additionally, you can insert HTML tags.

Once you are satisfied with the look and feel of your website simple click “Save Changes“.

Orbs can be used to create a simple landing page or a more complete website by using the add pages/subpages feature. Simply click on the “+” icon on the right of the main page and add a page or a subpage.

In this example I created a sub-page (“MTE-3.1.1.1”) four-levels deep from the main “Home” page. As far as I could see there is no limit to how many pages and subpages you can create.

These pages and subpages can be renamed or deleted by clicking on the wrench icon.

Site Templates

The final element of your website is its design or look and feel. To change this select the “Design” button from the top panel and select “Customize Current Design”. You can alternatively create a completely new design by selecting “Make a new design“.

If you select “Customize Current Design” you will have the option to change the font and colour of the text on the website.

You can also add text boxes by selecting “Add Text”. Here you can also edit the font and colour of the newly created text.

When you are satisfied with the design of your website select “Save Changes“.

Additional Settings

You can also change some additional settings by clicking on “Settings” from the top panel.

Here you can change the site’s privacy settings by opening it up to anyone in the public or only to those who have invites (this is the default setting). You can also select how many other users can collaborate on your website. In the free package only one person has access to the website.

Conclusion

What attracted me to Orbs when I was creating a personal landing page was the fact that it was simple to setup and easy to edit. On other platforms, I would find a theme I like and I would spend a long time tweaking it to my liking. Then later it would be impossible to make changes because I had fundamentally changed the theme itself. Orbs provides a simple WYSIWYG editor which allows you to make changes very easily. Hence, creating a website on Orbs is as simple as creating a text document.

Orbs is free for the basic package, but you can pay to upgrade for more user access, greater number of pages, storage and enhanced security (SSL encryption).